1/07/2010 @ 12:01AM

Hearts Beat Charts

When it comes to understanding the power of words and how to appeal to voters’ emotions, Republicans have consistently outmaneuvered Democrats, who have wrongly believed that people can’t help but agree with them once all the facts are presented.

The past three decades have shown that even on issues where voters may agree more with the Democrats, Republicans have still been able to hold their own and even win by successfully framing their arguments in ways that touch voters’ hearts and nerves. So now, when Democrats control government, they are having a hard time convincing voters to accept their legislation on health care and job creation, even with polling support. Case in point: A December Zogby Interactive poll found majority support for aspects of the stimulus bill passed last year, but opposition when we used the term “stimulus.”

Remarkably, the Democrats are about to pass landmark health care legislation, but may suffer for it in the 2010 elections. The electoral politics of health care shifted in August. While Democrats went home to meet with voters and talk about the nuances of health care policy, Republicans seized on one small provision of the bill and labeled it “death panels.” That caught everyone’s attention, and was just the start of Democrats having to explain why the bill wasn’t socialism and that government bureaucrats would not be making decisions about peoples’ health.

The Democrats’ other majority-passed legislation was the aforementioned “stimulus bill.” Last month, the House barely passed a new jobs bill, with 40 Democrats voting no. Now, the legislation goes to the Senate, where the loss of even one Democrat will enable the 40 Republicans to prevent cloture and stop the bill from getting an up or down vote.

It’s not that the Democrats never try to put a winning label on legislation. They are calling this jobs bill the Jobs for Main Street Act. However, Republicans counter by labeling it the “son of the stimulus.” You be the judge of which has more punch.

Led by pollster Frank Luntz, Republicans have masterfully used focus groups and homed in on just the right words to trigger positive or negative responses from voters. Damning the stimulus is a slam dunk winner. For a majority of voters, the only things the bill has stimulated are government waste, more debt and more handouts to the undeserving. Democrats may believe they have made things better (or at least not as bad), but voters aren’t buying it.

Our December interactive poll shows why. We offered likely voters several policy approaches to create and retain jobs, and asked them to rate each on a four-point scale of strongly approve, somewhat approve, strongly disapprove or somewhat disapprove.

Each of the following drew majority approval:

–Tax breaks for employers who must use the money to add employees, 81%

–Federal aid to states and localities used to retain jobs in education, public safety and other public functions, 58%

–Public employment programs such as those created during the Depression, 56%.

The three approaches that voters liked were all, to some extent, part of the stimulus bill. But when they were lumped under the popular title of “stimulus bill, support plummeted.

There are very large partisan differences. Large majorities of Democrats approve of all four proposals listed above, but even among them, a second stimulus was lowest with 65%. Among Republicans, only tax breaks for employers got majority approval. Only 29% of independents approved of a second stimulus, and small majorities of them favored the other three.

(We did list one other proposal that also failed to get majority approval. That was “tax cuts for all businesses and corporations with no requirement about hiring.” Forty-two percent overall approved, including 69% of Republicans.)

In summary, despite winning two election cycles, Democrats have not matched Republicans’ ability to use words. Republicans have learned that hearts beat charts, and Democrats have not.